Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream

There is little question about the incredible power of Bruce Springsteen's work as a particularly transformative art, as a lyrical and musical fusion that never shies away from sifting through the rubble of human conflict. As Rolling Stone magazine's Parke Puterbaugh observes, Springsteen 'is a peerless songwriter and consummate artist whose every painstakingly crafted album serves as an impassioned and literate pulse taking of a generation's fortunes. He is the foremost live performer in the history of rock and roll, a self-described prisoner of the music he loves, for whom every show is played as if it might be his last.' In recent decades, Puterbaugh adds, 'Springsteen's music developed a conscience that didn't ignore the darkening of the runaway American Dream as the country greedily blundered its way through the 1980s' and into the sociocultural detritus of a new century paralysed by isolation and uncertainty.

Bruce Springsteen, Cultural Studies, and the Runaway American Dream reflects the significant critical interest in understanding Springsteen's resounding impact upon the ways in which we think and feel about politics, religion, gender, and the pursuit of the American Dream. By assembling a host of essays that engage in interdisciplinary commentary regarding one of Western culture's most enduring artistic and socially radicalizing phenomena, this book offers a cohesive, intellectual, and often entertaining introduction to the many ways in which Springsteen continues to impact our lives by challenging our minds through his lyrics and music.

CONTENIDO:

Foreword (Howard Kramer)
Introduction: 'Dream baby dream': Bruce Springsteen's American serenade, (Kenneth Womack and Jerry Zolter)

- Part I 'Land of Hope and Dreams': Springsteen's Working-Class Heroes and the Search for American Identity:
1.- 'Darkness on the edge of town': Springsteen, Richard Ford, and the American dream (David N. Gellman)
2.- Dead man's town: 'Born in the USA', social history, and working-class identity (Jefferson Cowie and Lauren Boehm)
3.- 'Believe me, Mister': the tradition of Woody Guthrie's hurt song in Springsteen's The Rising and Devils & Dust (Donna M. Dolphin)
4.- 'Where dreams are found and lost': Springsteen, nostalgia and identity (Elizabeth M. Seymour)

- Part II 'There's a Sadness Hidden in that Pretty Face': Springsteen and Gender Identity:
5.- 'Come to the door, Ma': mothers, women and home in Springsteen's Devils & Dust (Liza Zitelli)
6.- Bruce Zirilli: The Italian sides of Bruce Springsteen (Samuele F.S. Pardini)
7.- Finding meaning in manhood after the war: gender and the warrior myth in Springsteen's Vietnam War songs (Heather Stur)

- Part III 'Lost in the Flood': Springsteen and Religion:
8.- Springsteen and the Puritan ideal of the Promised Land (Spencer L. Allen)
9.- From Adam to Jesus: Springsteen's use of scripture (Matthew Orel)
10.- Life right now: Springsteen and spirituality (Scott Wagar)

- Part IV 'It's Hard to be a Saint in the City': Springsteen, Ethics, and Social Justice:
11.- 'The country that we carry in our hearts is waiting': Bruce Springsteen and the art of social change (Edward U. Murphy)
12.- Springsteen's search for individuality and community in post-1960s America (Jason P. Stonerook)
13.- 'American Skin (41 Shots)', 'Galveston Bay' and the social psychology of prejudice (Steven Fein)
14.- Shaking the city's walls: teaching politics with the Boss (John Massaro)

Works cited
Index.